The Lantern Match
When a shy dragon peeks over the garden hedge wanting to play football, Fen teaches him to kick, dribble, and wait for the perfect moment — and together they discover that the best games are the ones played by lantern light.
Made on Nightstory, and shared. The child's name has been changed.
Drawing Dragons on the Path
Fen sat on the fern path with her back against the warm stone of the cave-home. Her chalks lay in a tin box beside her. She chose the green one and drew a dragon in a football kit, with a number on his back and a long tail curling behind him. Her triceratops sat on her knee and watched. "That's the goalie," Fen told him, and drew two round amber eyes. Then she heard a rustle in the big hedge. A soft, smoky sigh drifted out between the leaves, like a kettle thinking about boiling. Fen stood up slowly. She looked over the hedge. Ferns. Daisies. One small pinecone. Nothing else. She sat back down, and her green chalk rolled off the path into the grass. Fen reached for it, and the hedge rustled once more, very softly, as if someone behind it had just sat down too.
A Mossy Green Snout
Fen leaned on her elbows and looked right over the top of the hedge. Two amber eyes looked back at her. They belonged to a small dragon, no bigger than a big dog, with scales the green of moss and ferns. He sat very still on the other side of the hedge, with his tail wrapped around his feet and his wings folded up small. "Hello," said Fen. The dragon's tail gave a tiny twitch. He looked at Fen's chalk tin, and at the dragon she had drawn in a football kit, and then back at Fen. He shuffled his feet. Then he put his snout down and nudged a pinecone through a gap in the hedge, until it rolled onto the path and stopped by Fen's boot. Fen picked it up. The pinecone was smooth and warm, worn round from being kicked. "You've been practising," she said. The dragon's amber eyes went wide and round, as if he had been hoping she would say exactly that.
The Pinecone Practice
The dragon slipped through the gap in the hedge and stood on the fern path. He was smaller up close than Fen had thought, and his tail went on and on behind him, curling over the ferns like a garden hose. He trotted to the hedge and set the pinecone down. Then he stepped back, looked at it hard, and nudged it with the side of his foot. The pinecone tapped against the leaves. He trotted after it, nudged it again. Tap. Tap. Tap. He had done this a lot. Fen could tell. The pinecone always went the same small distance, the same gentle way, as if he had practised it every evening for weeks and weeks, all by himself, with nobody watching. "That's good," said Fen. She clapped her hands twice. The dragon's tail gave one small, pleased wag, and then went still, and he looked at Fen as if to ask what came next.
A Real Ball from the Shed
Fen set the pinecone on the wall. "Wait here," she said. "I know someone who kicks a real one." She ran to Papa's shed, where the mower slept and the rakes leaned together. Behind the seed trays sat the football, brown and scuffed, with a patch shaped like a leaf. She carried it back in both arms and set it on the path between them. The dragon went very still. He looked at the football the way Fen looked at the moon — round, and far, and too big to touch. His tail curled tight around his feet. His wings lifted, just a little, and settled again. "It's softer than it looks," said Fen. She nudged it with the side of her boot, and it rolled one slow turn. She stepped back. The dragon watched the ball. Then he nudged it, the same careful way. It rolled. He followed it, head down, one foot in front of the other, and nudged it again.
Tail Stops and Soft Passes
The dragon nudged the football again, and this time it rolled past him, down the path, and bumped against a fern. He turned to chase it, but his tail came round the wrong way and hooked it back. The ball stopped dead against the soft curl of his tail. Fen clapped once. "There. That's a trap. Keep it." The dragon looked down at his own tail as if it had done something clever without asking. He lifted it, set the ball free, and nudged it carefully back along the path to Fen. She stopped it with her boot and passed it again. He trapped it with his tail. He passed it back. Nudge. Roll. Trap. Tap. Up the path and down the path they went, past the ferns and the flat stone, until the light turned gold and long, and the two of them moved in a slow, easy rhythm, like a song with only two notes in it.
The Village Green at Dusk
The fern path sloped down between the trees, and at the bottom the village green was waking up with light. Children were stringing paper lanterns along the goalposts, one after another, and hanging them in the low branches, where they swung and glowed like small orange moons. Fen walked down the path with the football under her arm. The dragon walked behind her, and then beside her, and then a little behind her again, his claws ticking on the stones. At the edge of the green he stopped. His wings lifted, just a little, and settled. Then they lifted again. "They won't mind," said Fen. The dragon watched the lanterns sway. He watched the children run between them, boots thumping, shadows sliding long and thin across the grass. He took one small step onto the green.
Fen Asks for a Place
Fen walked to the goalposts, where the children were tying the last lantern to the crossbar. Their shadows bobbed on the grass, long and thin, then short, then long again. "This is my friend," said Fen. "He's been practising with a pinecone. Can he play?" The children turned. The dragon stood at the edge of the green with his tail wrapped around his feet. One girl looked at his tail, and then at his bright amber eyes, and grinned. "He can go in goal," she said. "Look at that tail." A boy in a stripy jumper waved him over. "Come on, then." The dragon looked at Fen. She nodded. He lifted one careful claw and set it on the green, where the lantern light lay in warm coins across the grass. Then he walked, one slow step at a time, into the middle of the circle of children, and every face turned up to him and smiled.
Lanterns and Kick-Off
The boy in the stripy jumper put the ball on the grass and stepped back. The lanterns leaned on their strings and let their light fall down. Fen stood at the edge with her triceratops tucked under her arm. A girl kicked the ball. It rolled across the green, soft and slow, and all the children ran after it with their boots thumping. Then the ball came toward the goal, and the dragon's tail moved before he did. It swept round in a gentle arc and stopped the ball as if it had rolled into a nest. The ball sat against his tail and did not move. The children stopped running. Then they cheered, all together, loud enough to lift the lanterns. The dragon looked at Fen. His wings lifted, just a little, and did not come down.
The Ball Under the Bush
A boy took a run at the ball and kicked it hard. Up it went, over the heads, past the goalposts, and away into the dark at the edge of the green. It rolled under a thick bush and stopped. The children ran to the bush and crouched down. They parted the leaves with their hands. They leaned in close, shoulder to shoulder, peering into the shadowy place where the ball had gone. It was too dark in there. Nobody could see a thing. Then the dragon stepped up beside them. He lowered his long neck, slow and smooth, down to the grass. He stretched it out flat, further and further, until his chin touched the ground and his snout slid in under the leaves. The children held still. His claws felt about. Once. Twice. Then they closed gently around the ball, and his neck came curling back up, and there was the football, held safe, with a little leaf stuck to it. Everyone laughed at once. The dragon set the ball on the grass and blinked his amber eyes.
Playing On Till the Lanterns Dim
They played on. The lanterns hung lower and softer now, and nobody counted the goals. A girl in red wellies passed to the dragon, and he nudged the ball back with the side of his foot, just as Fen had shown him on the path. A boy kicked it high, and the dragon's tail swept it out of the air and set it down gently, like setting down a sleeping cat. The children clapped. Then the dragon had his turn. He took three slow steps, swung his tail, and the ball rolled toward the goal. It rolled, and rolled, and stopped just beside the post. Almost, said the girl in red wellies. Almost, said the dragon, in his smoky voice. The lanterns leaned on their strings and lit the grass in warm gold circles. Everyone kept playing, and nobody wanted to stop.
Home Up the Fern Path
The lanterns were burning low now, little moons that had shrunk to candle-flames. One by one, the children picked their lanterns off the goalposts and the tree branches and gathered up their coats. Goodnight, Fen. Goodnight, dragon. Their lanterns bobbed away down the lanes like slow fireflies, and the green grew dark and wide and quiet. Fen picked up the very last lantern and held it low, and the dragon walked beside her to the fern path. Up they went, past the ferns that brushed their ankles. At the big hedge, the dragon turned in a circle, once, twice, the way you do when you are very tired, and curled up in the dry hollow underneath. Fen set the lantern by his nose and put the football where his claw could reach it. Goodnight, dragon, she said. His tail curled round the ball. His amber eyes closed to two small lines of light, and his wings settled, and his breath came out slow and warm and smoky, one puff, then no more.
Boots by the Bed
Fen climbed the fern path with her lantern swinging low. At her cave door she wiped her boots on the mat, then set them side by side, yellow toe to yellow toe, the way she always did. Inside, the cave was warm and dim. She hung her red cape on its hook. She found her triceratops waiting on the pillow, and she climbed under the quilt, and she pulled him in close. Out on the green, the last lantern flickered. It glowed, and dimmed, and glowed, and then it went out, soft as a sigh. The village green went quiet. The moon came up over the trees and laid a pale silver quilt across the grass, and the hedge hollow breathed slow and warm, and Fen's eyes closed, and her triceratops stayed tucked under her chin, and the whole village slept.
The end.